Training for the Big Wall

ENLARGE

You can spend only so much time in Yosemite Valley before feeling the need to climb El Capitan.
Michael Ybarra

By

Michael J. Ybarra

November 29, 2011

Yosemite National Park

Ilooked at the small metal nut that I had slotted in the crack and watched it move as I stood in the sling connected to it. It seemed to be biting deeper, which was reassuring as I moved up a step in my aider, a webbing ladder used to ascend Big Walls. I was wiggling another nut higher into the crack when the first one popped. Three hundred feet up the side of a cliff and I was suddenly falling.

My rope caught me after a few feet—the first time I was sure my self-belay system actually worked. I was solo aid climbing a 700-foot wall in Index, Wash.—a route called Town Crier. I was starting to feel like crying myself.

If free soloing (using only rock shoes, without the protection of a rope) is the purest form of climbing, then aid soloing is the slowest, most cumbersome kind one can imagine, mixing, as it does, terror and tedium.

But you can spend only so much time in Yosemite Valley before feeling the need to climb El Capitan. Few features in the world so dominate their landscapes as El Cap does Yosemite, where its two enormous walls of granite, towering 3,000 feet above a meadow, jut into the valley like a ship's prow. The Captain, as climbers call it, is the very definition of a Big Wall. And, unless you're Spider-Man (or Lynn Hill, the first person to free climb El Cap), you have to resort to aid to ascend it.

So I've been trying to teach myself how to aid climb. Free climbing (as opposed to free soloing) is what I usually do, using protection and rope only as safeguards. Aid, by contrast, is about standing on gear placements and engineering your way up steep or overhanging blank walls like El Cap, which can take days to ascend.

With a partner and gear, you can probably climb an average pitch (usually up to 200 feet) in about half an hour. You could probably free solo the same climb in 10 minutes. An aid pitch, by contrast, could easily take a couple of hours. Solo aid is even slower—requiring that you climb the pitch twice and rappel it once to retrieve the gear.

Despite the fall, Town Crier actually went pretty well. There was a fun pitch under a huge roof where I had to climb into a corner, then lower myself down the rope and run back and forth on the wall until I could catch the edge of the next crack system. There was a triple-tiered roof, which made for interesting and challenging climbing. There was a mandatory hook move—something I'd never tried before—where you cam a bent piece of steel into a crack and only the force of downward pressure keeps it in place. Climbing higher onto my aider above the hook was terrifying, but it stayed put. I was off the wall by dark.

I decided to try a bigger wall: Washington Column in Yosemite. I picked a route called Skull Queen, a 1,100-foot-tall line that would require at least one night on the wall, which meant I would have to bring a haul bag with everything I'd need for a multiday effort (food, water, sleeping gear). Haul bags are affectionately called pigs—because when you're pulling one up a pitch it feels like you might as well be dragging a hog up a mountain.

It took me two trips to carry my gear to the base of the column. The first three pitches were straightforward, although hauling the pig up blocky, low-angled terrain was a chore. This put me on the Dinner Ledge, a large, flat sandy area that comfortably sleeps six. I decided to climb one more pitch and set up a rope for ascending it in the morning. One placement blew and sent me on a small fall to a ledge, aggravating an old ankle injury. But I have a pretty good idea of what a broken ankle feels like, so I wasn't worried about the pain. It was dark by the time I was back on the Dinner Ledge.

The night was calm and beautiful. Across the valley, the outline of Half Dome was unmistakable. Stars popped out of the evening sky, then an almost-full moon rose above the trees and lit up the ledge. Far below, campfires glowed and lights flickered on. I heated soup and talked to a European couple climbing another route.

I was headed up my ropes by 8 the next morning. Jumaring, or climbing fixed lines with mechanical ascenders, is another Big Wall skill you need to master to efficiently aid climb—one I was still figuring out. Ascending a free hanging rope that twists in the breeze and juts over an edge (how sharp is that rock?) is one of the scariest things a climber can do. I was already tired by the time I regained my highpoint of the previous day.

The next couple of pitches weren't difficult, but the day was hot and I began to feel dehydrated. I got muscle cramps in my legs and arms. The large rack of gear dug into my shoulders and my jury-rigged chest harness made it hard to breathe. The two ropes I was trailing added even more weight to every move. Gravity, never my friend, was feeling more oppressive than ever. I was exhausted.

By pitch seven, storm clouds were rapidly building across the valley. I checked the time: 3 p.m. I was far behind schedule with several pitches, including the hardest ones, still to go. My ankle throbbed. For me, climbing is often about looking for excuses not to climb. I decided to bail.

That's when the real fun started. The first rappel was easy, but the second involved going over a roof and traversing quite some distance to regain the anchor. I couldn't get that far over and found myself dangling near the ends of my rope, still high above the ground. I was able to reach a rock flake of dubious adhesion to the wall. It would have to do. I built an anchor and rappelled into a tree. Two aiders and a rat's nest of other equipment hanging off my harness made getting through the trees to the ground the crux of the day.

Then the rope got stuck. It was dark by the time I had the rope free and was back at the Dinner Ledge. More rappelling, this time with the pig, ensued. Then I had to haul my gear down the trail back to my truck. Luckily another retreating party was nice enough to help me with the loads.

It was 10 p.m. and I was ready to call it a day. I have to say, though, that I learned a lot. I learned I hate aid climbing.

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